Scenes of Crows
by inopinion
Summary: Short scenes or situations featuring all of the Dregs and some of the pairings.
1. Kanej Scene 1

He took a deep breath in and a stilted, jittery breath out. If he focused on the air, just the air and not how her body made space in it, he could keep himself from hyperventilating. The theory held while the air was still and he started to enjoy the sight of her eyes looking up at his. He counted the eyelashes that obscured her irises and the sheen of oils that made her forehead glisten in the heat. A deep breath in, and another stilted out. He relaxed his body and felt their stomachs touch,their chests tap together.

Her hands came up to his belt, under his coat and her smirk brought humor but her eyes watched him close. He tensed again. His breathing stopped all together and her fingers on his sides pushed him away like a magnet. He stepped backwards out of the box and gasped.

Inej slouched onto the window sill and crossed her arms. He didn't look at her, not while she was watching him. He battled his brain for control and focus.

"Again."

"Kaz–"

"Again." He stepped into the box and pointed, directing her.

She came into his space, her own feet inside the box and the breeze blew through the window and then the air filtered back out. Her scent filled his nostrils and mixed in the gut-clenching revoltion, he felt a need that only she could bring to him. And his heart pounded faster with fury and a clenching ache just below. Her hands came up to his belt, again, under his jacket, and this time, his arms circled around her back. She stiffened. The plan was to hide the knives in his jacket, Kaz's arms should have stayed by his sides. When she stiffened, he retreated.

"Sorry."

"What?" Inej shook her head, shook her ears, sought the air for an echo.

Kaz didn't repeat that word and had nothing else to snuff it from her ears. She blinked at him. He gathered his composure.

"We can find another way."

"No, Inej. This is the way. Now, again."

They came together in the square. She lifted her hands to his belt. She circled around to his back, following his suspenders up. A fire blazed up into his chest and through his cheeks, she turned her head so her ear was flat against his chest, reaching and manipulating the handles. Kaz's hands rose and covered her back, pressing her into him, and her hands stilled.

He knew she could hear his heart so there wasn't any way to hide the effect she had on him. And he didn't want to hide it, or run from it, or give into the flashing memories of cold, spongy flesh. He touched her bare shoulders with his fingertips. The little hairs standing straight up like coarse velvet on expensive furniture. She was richer than any velvet he'd ever touched and warmer than he could have expected. And she moved her muscles, restarting her hands, only they didn't play in the sheaths attached to his back. They ran down his spine and locked in the back.

The door cracked and they fell apart.

"How's the practice coming?" Jesper asked, heavy sacks on his shoulders.

"The sheaths are too tight, I need to stretch them out. It'll be too obvious under his coat," Inej curled her fingers in on themselves and rushed to take something off Jesper's shoulders.

"Throw 'em here, Kaz?" Jesper clapped his hands together, watching Kaz remove his jacket and slip the knife holders off his suspenders.

"Get them how you need them, Inej. We can practice later," Kaz pulled on his gloves and picked up his cane, stepping out into the hallway in the slats.

"So?" Jesper asked.

"I'm not gonna kiss and tell."

"There was kissing?" Jesper grinned, sloppy and sideways.

"Of course not." Inej threw a package of cotton socks at him. "It's a job."

"You're the one that brought up kissing," Jesper needled. Inej shook her head and sat in the cool of the window.


	2. Wraith in the Window

The demon of the Barrel slept curled on his side, arms tucked into his chest. He slept bad-leg down and always in socks. His leather gloves dangled off the little table and his cane leaned ready to be gripped. He slept in old pant faded and soft in the knees and a undershirt covering him all the way to his wrists.

She wondered how at peace he could actually be with all that he had done. His lip twitched and she stepped low into the shadow below the foot of the bed.

"Wraith." Sleep clung to his throat.

She waited. He didn't move.

"Inej." He rolled to his back. She rose to her feet. His eyes asked questions. Why was she there? How long had she been there? What's wrong?

What was wrong? How long had it been since anything had been right? Why was it that this man–with coffee eyes and sandpapered jaw– a demon to everyone but her? Of everyone, why was she in his room wondering over his thoughts, eying his hands?

She moved and he responded in turn.

She stepped to his bedside. He pushed up leaning on his elbow.

She lowered onto the edge of his bed. He drew his good knee up.

She planted one arm on either side of his body. And he pulled back.

Her eyes lined up pupil-to-pupil with his. She watched his lids pull back, felt warmth fill the space between their bodies. His jaw tightened. She heard him swallow.

 _He doesn't want this._

She shifted back. His lips surged forward.

The touch is fleeting. A tap of lip to lip. Inej trickled like water over his legs. She tested tea leaves and mint. She felt an eager urgent push. His entire body coming off the bed to meet her.

What she didn't feel was hinds on her body because they stayed fisted around sheets. And she couldn't feel the involuntary cold-sweat pushing out of his lower back. She could, however, sense the tension of his jaw–the puff of air from his nose. And then his shamed blush when he collapsed into his pillow, arms folding over his head.

Onto one foot then a jump to the chair and back out the window to the roof. She panted above the gable. Her tongue separating his taste in her mouth. She'd kissed the demon and Kaz had kissed back.


	3. Stained Fingers

Inej Ghafa, _Six of Crows_

She knows there's dirt and there are stains. Dirt is the chalk on her hands after climbing. The sweat that sticks her shirt to her back. It is the grease from potatoes plucked one by one from a cone of newspaper on the way down the avenue. Dirt is all that can be washed off, removed, cleaned, forgotten like it never happened. Dirt is all the small things that never seat themselves in her mind.

Stains, on the other hand, stains sit with her. They slide on the surface and cling into pores. They happen without request or, sometimes, without reason. And they linger as shadows under the edges of scars and the folds of fresh linen. Stains, no matter how hard she tries, they don't wash clean.

Her fingers, strong and calloused, capable as weapons and as tools; they have never looked vile to her before. Blood turns brown faster than spit dries on a fire and it settles into the creases and the cuts. She sees the lines like deep holes trenched in her skin. The brown shades her and all else is numb. Not numb, like she can't feel, but numb because she won't. She won't feel the bruises on her ribs, the cut on her arm, the swelling in her knee. She won't feel them because then she'd feel how her feet slam into the ground uncoordinated and clanking and that is more shame than she can bare when there is blood on her hands.

If not for him, she'd have crumpled in the alley next to the body that she'd made. It was a man before she got there and fuel for the fires when she'd left. If not for him, that body would still breath, at least for another day. All the same, he'd urged her up to the sanctity of the rooftops. But her feet didn't flutter up in an acrobat's dance, they fell into the ground. Stumbled mess of toes and ankles folding under soles and shins, she could barely walk for all that she would not feel.

She pretends she can wash herself and be clean. She prays to her saints and to Gods she can't name. The brown clouds off her skin and reddens against the porcelain. She shakes, horrified, the blood sticking into her fingerprints and seeping into her cuticles. She scrubs. She drains. She scrubs. She drains. She scrubs again, not seeing the brown of her skin but the blood that pools out of the raw scratches she's torn into it. She sets the dirt into a stain.

Irrevocable. Irremovable. Permanent. A shadow below a scar.


	4. Alone

Leaning on the wall, he relaxed. He dropped the posture and the pretense when his door shut and the days business was done. Even in the solitude of his rooms he didn't find silence. Bouncing between eardrum and wall was the faint hiss of breath between teeth and the grind of dirt into the wood. But his ears had tricked him before and he cast aside his hopes.

He pushed himself upright with the press of his cane behind him and stepped into his routines. He set his cane against the table and removed his gloves one at a time. The sound of leather unsheathing supple, soft skin replaced his imaginings of breath. The light tap of the clasps clapping back together when he unhooked his cuff-links covered the grinding of soles on sills. And the ruffle of his shirt as he un-tucked it and pulled it off re-centered his mind. He dipped his left hand and then his right into the water then reached for the washcloth, touching bare wood instead.

He looked at the deep brown stain of his table. The breath whispered across a tongue then through parted lips. The soles of her feet teetered forward, weight on her toes and grit under the grips. Each signature sound struck him as both a wish and a prayer, and he felt certain of her presence.

"Wraith," he whispered as he turned.

His own boots on the floorboards echoed in the hallow room and bounced from empty corners. Kaz Brekker cursed. He looked about himself wild and certain, then slower and steady as he discovered the tricks of his mind.


	5. Laced

The long tails of a fashionable dress hung damp and limp over the edge of the window sill. She looked out, one leg on either side, waiting to see if her crows would come. Kaz disappeared through the front room and into his back office as soon as the job was done, but she couldn't bombard herself with the noise of the Dregs and took the well-trod path up the exterior to his window. Everything about her reeked of cigarettes and cigars. The pungent flavor of Jurda still tingled her teeth and sleep would be hours away. But her body ached for a rest. So Inej rested, relaxed, in the rain and on the sill soaking up the silence of splatters and letting herself breath.

The floorboards squeaked and his cane ruptured the hum of the crowd below with the oncoming threat of his presence. She roused her mind out of nothing and into the small space, eyes flicking to the door and down at her hands with each thump. Her heart began to beat faster as she admitted she had more than just the rain on her mind since she took her seat.

Out on the seas, she kept most of her thoughts at arms length. Out there, there were numerous and seemingly infinite things to steal her time. The crew, the ship, the provisions. The budget, the tips, the raids. The girls, their homes, the journeys, the traumas. Always something, never nothing.

In Katterdam, it was the opposite. She owed no one her attention and gave it sparingly between meals at Wylan's estate. She was unprepared for the home sickness she had for the Slats. Specifically, for the boy hidden under greed and Dirty-hands. The way she thought of those hands, unsheathed, and unleashed drew fire into her cheeks. It took her hours to figure out it was desire, a pining pinch, a lusty memory of a tentative kiss and soft, un-calloused hands. Though there were layers to overcome. Armor and leather and all the things that repetition and familiarity could strip away, but they had neither practice nor earned comfortable ease on their side. She had three days to catch up on three months of passed time and two were already spent crawling the rooftops to serve his master: money.

Kaz huffed a chuckle when his eyes adjusted to the lighting and pried her silhouette from the night-scape. He lit a lantern, though he could have chosen the electric lights recently installed. The naked flame danced on his features giving credence to accusations of a demonic presence. The lamp shade softened the glow to bring forth a boy barely shaving and lost for words. She'd let him find them before she spoke.

He started his ritual, stepping into his bedroom. She heard his fingers twist the leather and the gloves touch the table gently. Then the ruffle of his shirt coming undone and un-tucked, then cast on the back of a chair. She could picture the dip of his hands in the water and the sponging motions of cloth on his chest and under his arms. She closed her eyes and watched a drip slip down to his pants and she sighed.

"Long day, I know." His half naked shape stepped out and toward the window. She sucked in her breath and straightened, ready to reprimand, but his armor was left on the dressing table. "You need clothes?"

Magician's fingers flicked out to toy with the wet fabric of her dress. Then his hands found the lace of her gloves and slid up her arm. There was no flinch, an assurance her idea had credence.

"Unlace the back?" she asked, turning.

Kaz fit neatly into the space behind her, warm and nearly steaming in the cool, crisp air of Katterdam's spring. Goosebumps prickled as his finger tips touched the fabric and moved her hair. They scraped the lace that bordered her neck and yet his breath didn't hitch, his touch didn't falter. She bit her lip and her cheeks burned. The corset loosened and the dress began to fall away. He stripped the strands from the holes and freed the ribbon all the way to her waist. She raised her arms. The smallest stutter in his movements, a tell he desperately tried to hide, but he brought it up over her head and off.

The lace shirt was more than a shirt. It was a body suite she'd ordered with goods plundered from the sea. When he touched it, he didn't feel flesh. He didn't feel a body that could become cold or still, he felt the intricate knots of Fabrikator fabric. Inej, similarly, didn't feel the palm of his hand or the grip of his fist, but the muted pressure distributed along the fine netting.

Inej turned and let the skirt drop away. Her hair covered her face, but not enough to keep fire from her skin or doubt from her mind.

Kaz half smiled, looking at her all-but-bare body and the way her skin pushed through the fabric slightly when she breathed.

"Is that? Is that scheming face?" Inej tilted her head, curling her lip back under her teeth.

"It seems I've been out maneuvered," Kaz's voice drug in gravel. He cleared his throat and pushed his eyes upwards.

"Are you praying, Kaz?" she giggled.

"If there was ever a reason to, I would certainly be for you," his fingers touched her wrist again, and up her arm and to her shoulder.

She moved in just as much on impulse as on plan, and his heart lept into a fluttering pounding. But his hands stayed.


	6. Barrel's Broker

The slats buzzed. Kaz looked up and out the open door to his domain. The same name over and over, Wraith. When the Dregs said it, they lacked the heavy edge and replaced it with a breathy wonder. Like speaking it too harshly would bring catastrophe and otherwise they could be excused as if in prayer. Kaz often prayed to the barer of that name, though he scarcely admitted it to himself, and he used her given name: Inej.

She was afforded the space that she'd earned with brass knuckles and knives. No one slapped her back or even extended more than a handshake. Most didn't even do that, just halted mid-air and switched to an awkward wave. He didn't remember getting to his feet, just did it, with his cane still at his desk, he'd made the fifteen steps unaware of the throbbing. The temporary suspension of his pain receptors snapped to reality when he saw the grim and determined line of her lips, the small furrow of her brow. This was not a happy homecoming.

He glanced around for Curry, the messenger assigned to fifth harbor. The boy's soul task was to bring news of certain boats, captains, sailors directly to the slat. But the kid was out of breath and behind Inej pushing to get through. Curry's thin twelve-year-old frame passed like a sheet of dirty paper through the smallest gaps. He panted, bent over in front of Kaz.

"The Wraith docked."

"When?" Kaz pulled his watch from his vest pocket.

"Just the ten that the run took me."

"Then how'd the captain beat you here?" Kaz challenged, prepared to backhand the boy, and worse, if he lied.

"She came ashore on a different vessel about twenty minutes ago," Inej crossed the buffer that always existed between the banter and Kaz's office door.

"What business then?" Kaz stepped sideways and waved her in. He left Curry unaware of the beating he'd just been spared.

The pain surged like a floodgate releasing all that he hadn't felt in his adrenaline fueled rush to the doorway. He hopped a little and let the door close. He leaned back against it, eyes closed and focused on breathing for just long enough that Inej noticed.

"Injured?"

"Nothing more than usual," he assured. "What business, captain Ghafa?"

"Mr. Brekker…" she started, playful and with a smirk, but quickly dropped the slight act and delivered her news. "I've got a ship to sell, fast. And I need to restock my munitions, supplies, water."

"The ship got papers?"

"You know it doesn't."

"I've never brokered in vessels before."

"You bought one, I figured you could figure it out. Ten percent."

"No papers… Fifteen."

"Steep for a friend."

"Anyone else would be twenty-five." Inej chortled short and breathy. He added, "How fast you want it gone? It'll dictate the price."

"Fast as you can. Two days?"

"Two days, fifteen percent?"

"The deal is the deal," Inej confirmed.

"The deal is the deal," he nodded once, affirming his side. Then he took a tentative step and hobbled back to his desk. When he crossed by her, he passed just a foot in front of her. He felt her hand on his stomach and paused. Another hand tilted his head to look at her.

"Business concluded," her hand stroked the stubble on his chin and pulled his eyes onto hers. "I've missed your face."

"Likewise," he let the grin pull at his lips hoping it would bring a mirrored smile onto hers. His lips parted exposing his white teeth when he was right. "You safe? The supplies should have lasted longer."

"I had more successes than anticipated. The food, the munitions, just didn't last."

"I suppose that is one measure of your good fortune. Two days?"

"The ship was part of a fleet. We gotta get lost on the blue or cause an incident. I'm not sure we can pull off another roust. I thought you'd like to keep fifth harbor canon ball free?"

"Preferably." Kaz needed to sit, stretch his leg, and ease the muscles that were cramping from his poor posture. He settled for leaning against the desk, leg out stretched and grabbing the table top with both hands. He pressed up and let his hips sag down, gravity pulling a stretch along his back. The bones cracked into place.

It was always awkward when Inej first got back. They struggled with proximity and the lack of practice of being in each other's company. The resistance to relaxing, relinquishing armor, and with just two days, he doubted the effort needed would pay off. He wondered if she'd be in front of him if not for the second ship. She'd been into and out of the harbor without paying him any attention at least three times in the last year. He didn't take it personal, it was her business how much she dealt with demons on and off the water, so he said. Only he did take it personal, deeply personal.

"Come to Wylan's?"

"Does he have new art to steal?" Kaz flexed an eyebrow up. She tilted her chin down and the scolding look made him smirk. "Of course, I'll always accept an invitation to the Van Eck residence. What time?"

"Can you leave with me now?"

"Are we going by air or by ground?" Kaz reached back for his cane and used it to catch the brim of his hat off the hook on the wall.

She looked pointedly at his leg."You fit to make the walk?"

He glared at her when she fetched his coat from the back of the door.

"Keep up," he called, pressing through the throngs barely giving them time to part. His throat clenched at the shock of pain that swirled on every step, but weakness wouldn't due in the Slat's main room.

Out of the Slats and away from any prying ears, Inej tucked her hand into the crook of his arm like a proper lady might. Kaz fought the urge to pull away and stayed his course. He mulled on the pull of her body with each lurching, uneven step he took. And he liked it. He liked better imagining them doing it all the time. Inej, the queen of the barrel, him the king, a pair striking fear stronger than the threat of reprisals. Only she was commander of a different cause and a different sector - seeking her own retribution and justice. Justice wasn't a word that he could abide by with the same pristine morals she applied. Of all the people in the world, Inej made him feel so small, insignificant, and out of place. More so as she walked arm in arm with him through East Stave.

"One more thing, before we get there, and I don't need your help," she clarified for him before continuing. "One of the girls is staying. I don't know where to take her and she won't get back on the boat."

"And she's staying?"

"With Wylan and Jesper, but I was hoping you could, you know, throw her some protection if she wanders."

"There's limitations."

"Just, say you'll look out for her if she ends up in the Stave."

"As best I can. But a person makes their own choices, some of them very, very bad."

Inej hummed in the back of her throat and they pressed on.

.

.

"Does she speak Kerch?" Kaz looked the girl over from the hallway.

She, this unnamed, frail creature, perched by Wyland's mother watching her paint.

"I don't know. Looks maybe Kerch," Jesper followed Kaz's attention and performed his own examination.

"Could be Zemini…" Wylan interjected, while the girl was darker skinned and had the tight curls often attributed to the Zemini, she wasn't so dark as to make them certain.

"I've tried Zemini. Doesn't seem to faze her." Jesper shrugged and tapped his fingers on his elbow.

"Could ask her in every tongue we know. Between us that's a fair few," Wylan suggested, as if they all hadn't attempted different phrases on their own.

"She hasn't said a thing. Just sits like that and watches. The whole way on the boat just sat at the rail. She even slept on deck when it wasn't raining," Inej said.

Wylan chewed the outside of his thumb.

"Are her cords cut?" Kaz asked.

"No scars," Inej said.

"So what do we do?" Wylan asked.

"She's no good on a boat and I do t know where to take her if she won't say. I was hoping she could recover her, with you."

Jesper stiffened and his hands went to his hips though his guns were stored elsewhere, the motion was a habit he couldn't drop. He asked, impatient, "With us? For how long?"

"I'll return in a couple months," Inej said.

"And what do we do with her?" Wyland pulled the thumb out of his mouth like he'd just noticed he was chewing it. He wiped the spin on his trousers and tried to look a little less a mess.

"I don't know, be her friend? Take care of her? Be kind to her?" Inej suggested, almost scolding.

"Best you can do is review any contract she's offered. Keep her from dying in the brothels." Kaz shook his head in disbelief.

"Kindness isn't his strong suit," Jesper stated the obvious.

"I guess she could stay with us. Mother seems to like the company," Wylan said.

"How do we know we can trust her in our house?" Jesper countered, his hands, again, hunting for handles at his hips.

"Bring her to the Slats. We need a cook," Kaz said. They all turned and looked at him, alarmed, "She should earn her way like everyone else. Besides, if I'm to keep an eye on her, she needs to be where I have eyes."

Inej looked between Wylan and Kaz.

"You can't be serious? In the slats? Someone will violate her."

"Not if I say she's off limits. And if they do, I'll take their hand." Inej didn't doubt Kaz's ability to inflict violence, she just hated that it could only be doled out in hindsight. "I swear, Inej, no one will touch her."

"Well, if that isn't love," Jesper took a breath and excused himself to find fresh air outside.

Inej glanced between her choices and knew Kaz could only protect the girl in his house and Wylan was the same. Only if she found herself in trouble it would be in Kaz's territory.

"I don't know if she cooks."

"If she can't she'll be an improvement. But the only room I have is yours."

"You keep a room for me?" Inej asked, chuckling.

"Of course. You're part of the Dregs, aren't you?" Kaz turned on his heels and stepped through the hall, "Bring her tomorrow."

"Where are you going? We haven't eaten yet," Wylan called after him.

"I gotta go sell a boat," Kaz descended the stairs with extra weight on the banister.


End file.
